What were the aims of the Schlieffen plan.

Germany knew that within the next couple of years France or Russia would attempt a revenge attack on Germany because of what Germany did during the Franco- Prussian war Germany had to start preparing for this so they decided to let a man called Alfred von schlieffen draw up a plan to win a war with the two countries should either France or Russia made a move they aptly named this plan the Schlieffen plan after the man who drew it up.

In full knowledge of French defences, Schlieffen proposed attacking France through Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg – the Benelux countries. Schlieffen planned to use 90% of German military forces to deliver a knock out blow to France knocking them out of the war before Russia could build up there army. The remaining 10% would defend the eastern border of Germany against Russian attack.

Von Molkte replaced Von Schlieffen in 1906, and made some alterations to the plan. His version avoided invading Holland, instead concentrating attack through Belgium. According to Von Molke, the Belgium army would be unable to resist a powerful German military, and German forces would rapidly enter France.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Von schlieffen knew full well that the French had massive fortresses along there border with Germany this is why Von Schlieffen decided to go through the back door (Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg) this way the French army could not get to there northern borders in time causing Germany to have an easy passage right the way to Paris where the German army could take Paris and then be back in time to dispose of the Russian army also by going around the west of Paris if Britain did join the war they would not be able to help and could be beaten by Germany in the confusion.

This plan sadly for the Germans did not work they attempted to go through Belgium quickly but Belgium delayed the until the British soldiers got to The docks in France then the Belgium’s couldn’t stop them anymore so Germany marched forward until it was met by the British army who promptly stopped them until the French army could get into position seems as the Germans plan to cruise through Belgium had failed they could not get any of the supplies that they needed and slowly but surely the German army began to crumble then to make matters worse the Russians had mobilised quicker then expected and began to invade Germany where the 10% of the German army were and beat them easily slowly it was the Germans chance to surrender not France

Some of the things that Germany expected were that:

Russia would take at least 6 weeks to mobilise
France would be easily defeated in 6 weeks
Belgium would not resist any German attack
Britain would remain neutral

Instead of this happening this happened

Russia mobilized quicker then expected
France was not defeated
Belgium did resist an attack
Britain decided to join in the way

All of these factors show that the schlieffen plan failed in every single way and that the Germans lost in the end

I have shown in this essay that the main purpose of the schlieffen plan was to put France out of the war in the first 3 weeks then move the whole army against Russia who would’ve been on there own if Britain had not joined in.

There was lots of aims to the Schlieffen plan some of these being